March 02, 2012

i should probably start by mentioning that i haven't taken a ballet class in years. probably not since i was twenty. and now i'm fourty. so it's been quite a while.

it was loads of fun and the reason i was doing it is because i've been sort of missing dance class lately and also i can't take yoga because i recently had a sinus surgery and i can't go upside down (yet), so i thought ballet instead. perfect opportunity.

anyhow, i realized that the balances are still difficult. rising up on one's toes does not come easy. but more than that i realized that balancing won't just happen on its own, i have to participate in making it happen. i have to not only try, but will it to happen. expect it to. be what i want with every ounce of my imagination.

i think i used to believe that eventually, those balances (and spins) would just magically take place. on their own, somehow. that if i went to enough classes and enough time went by, voila. perfect turns.

apparently not.

i think i felt that way about cello too. that playing in tune would just happen, eventually. i'm still, years later (six, to be exact), struggling through simple scales (as do most people attempting a string instrument who practice as little as i do), trying to understand how to shift my hand into the right position without hitting a sharp or flat note. i realized today that you really have to not only practice doing that but you have to be present. you have to be aware in a very deep and present sense.

you can not let your mind wander off elsewhere, you have to pay attention to what you're doing. really pay attention.

yes, you have to work on the fundamentals. yes you have to practice. yes you have to build up strength. but you also have to be very much in charge of what you're attempting to do. you have to have resolve. no one else is going to do it for you. it isn't going to magically happen on its own. it doesn't happen if you're thinking about what you're going to make for dinner or those pretty snowflake earrings you saw online. you have to be in the moment. you have to be here now making it happen with every single bit of who you are.

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nothing to do with that or maybe everything to do with it, just look at these bird nests. aren't they lovely? i'm smitten.

February 24, 2012

these aren't mine, by the way. let me just clear that up right off the bat. these are the work of pamela henderson. aren't they lovely? i've just discovered her work and as soon as i get a chance i'm going to shoot over to giant robot and check it out. these pieces are some of my favorites. i'm drawn to them in the same way i'm drawn to emily martin + rebecca rebouche. there's something mysterious about them that stirs my awareness and makes me think + wonder. and i like things that make me think + wonder, don't you? i'm all about thinking + wondering these days. it's my way of being awake.

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my own paintings are about 1/3 of the way done and sitting in the basement waiting for me to finish the needle-felted dolls and then a quilted pillow case first. i'm still systematically trying to tick wip's off my list and the dolls + the pillow come before the paintings in this case, because they've been lying around the longest.

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but seeing work like this gets me excited about returning to my own paintings soon, very soon.

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you know, for the longest time, i wasn't even able to draw anymore. which is odd, because that's pretty much all i used to do my whole childhood and my whole teenage-hood right up until college. and even a little bit beyond that occasionally.

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and then something happened and i lost my ability to do it. it fizzled out. i drew a complete blank every time i tried. i literally could not put the pen to paper. it was miserable. i don't know what happened. maybe it had something to do with growing up, at least in my case, and losing the ability to go through the cupboard door to narnia. i'm not really sure, but can you imagine?

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and then i had children and it was the best thing i ever did in all my life. i had this wonderful family that i was completely in love with and it was a new kind of magic. something only a mother (or father, perhaps) could understand. they were my whole world. my husband + my kids. and they still are.

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then my little ones grew a bit and started drawing. they drew constantly, without hesitation, piles of beautiful images and it was like watching them walk through that cupboard door. it was both fascinating + frustrating. they had found narnia + i couldn't follow.

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for years i watched my children draw the most amazing, wonderful, imaginative things and i collected it all. i kept looking at their drawings + wondering when and if i was going to find my own way back to that magical place.

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what saved me was yarn. somewhere along the way i learned how to spin yarn and i loved it. it was like finding a key to a locked window next to the cupboard that allowed me to peek through a porthole at narnia. it was a piece of the magic i had lost. it was better than nothing. spinning threw me into a creative whirwind that totally sidestepped the inner critic that had developed in my adult self and allowed me to just be + make. it was wonderful + it still is. i am very grateful for it. i still couldn't draw, but i could spin, and i loved what i was spinning. still do.

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then recently (last spring, actually) i began to mourn drawing again. so, on a whim + with the encouragement of a friend, i took a leap of faith and an embroidery class at squam with rebecca ringquist. and it was amazing. did i ever tell you about squam? what a wonderful, magical place. if you haven't found narnia by now, go to squam and you will.

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i also took a mask making class there with pixie campbell and got back into learning through totem animals. equally mind-altering + nurturing. i can't really describe why. it's something you have to do. you can't just talk about it.

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anyway, the whole experience unlocked + released a lot of demons - i don't even know how. it just did. i was floating for weeks when i came back. weeks. i was so high, i had people calling me constantly to hang out, people i don't normally hear from. there were people bumping into me at the market and then following me around from aisle to aisle as if i was surrounded by some sort of magic fairy dust they were hoping would rub off on them, and i probably was surrounded by magic fairy dust. in fact, i'm sure i was. seriously, it was like that.

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rebecca's work was very inspiring to me + launched me into a newfound love of embroidery, the way she works it. wild and free and wreckless. kind of like how my children draw. very liberated.

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i started working on a piece filled with collected quotes and bits of images that spoke to me and spoke to + through my inner, higher self and it was like drawing, sort of. i was finding my way back through the cupboard door and i had my totem animal to guide me, in this case a rabbit, like alice.

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what this has to do with painting (and drawing) is, that after all that, i got b r a v e and decided to take a painting course. i was ready + more than that, willing. i found an e-course taught by lisa congden and mati mcdonough called "get your paint on" that spoke to me. what excited me about it was that lisa, who's blog i've been following for years, has had so much success in becoming an artist full time and she started painting professionally as an adult. that impressed the part of myself that was still dipping a toe in the pool of worry about not having a college education in art, not being professionally trained or skilled, etc. (all those adult-inner-critic-things that are really meaningless and do nothing but hold us back, if anything). and mati's style is very whimsical and childlike, which i love. and both of them seemed to be able to just let go and paint. perfect teachers for me, i thought. and they were. i absolutely loved the class. it was exactly what i needed. i started drawing + painting again.

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me being who i am, i haven't finished my paintings yet. ahem. like i said, they are in the basement waiting their turn. all four of them in various degrees of completion.

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but i am no longer blocked. i am no longer lost. i can pick up pens again and draw. i'm at the beginning of it, but i can do it. i am free to go in and out of the cupboard door anytime i like. i have found the key. i realize now that it was with me all along, but i have found it again or i remember how to use it now, or something. something has changed. for the better. in any case it's here and i have found my way back to narnia + its magic. how happy that makes me.

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and in due time, those paintings will be finished. and i will have a party to celebrate them and to celebrate magic, and you + all your magic will be invited.

February 18, 2012

sometimes it's little, unexpected things about my day that make it so amazing, like blow-drying my son's extra long hair that he refuses to cut, while he holds our mini macaw, who also gets a blow dry + decides to flip backward suddenly on griff's finger, a move that makes griffin giggle like mad. and life slows down suddenly and there is nothing more important than this moment with the blow drying of hair + feathers and the listening to that laughter. it's the most precious moment of the whole day. i want to put it in my pocket and hold onto it forever.

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spring soulodge registration is open. i just wanted to share that. i am a big soulodge fan, having signed up for 3 sessions at this point, i think. i started my love of e-courses with susannah conway's unravelling, (a tremendous experience - highly recommend it) and ended up at soulodge via squam and i keep finding myself re-registering into soulodge every season. it keeps me awake. offers me ways of continuing to dive deeper and look more closely and also just to be present + more aware + conscious. check it out.

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randomly, i have finished the purl bee cowl. do you hear the band playing just for me? it is celebrating another project completed (i think my husband may have hired that band). the cowl is soft and pretty and i am very happy.

i am intent on finishing things this year. i am tidying up the wip's lying around the house + deciding what's worth finishing + what's not. and getting rid of what's not. every completed project gives me a small surge of adrenaline. it's like secretly getting a gold star or having a band play just for you. a small audience cheering + shouting "yay!!!".

i have a million excuses for not finishing things. every one of them perfectly just. they are brilliant, plausible excuses. they are. but i am tired of them. i am tired of making them. i am not going to play that game any more. i don't know what deeply buried fear or pattern or habit is preventing me from finishing projects and keeping them piled about the house. i don't know what is inspiring me to waste precious moments coming up with excuses that don't really amount to anything, because, let's face it. we all know an excuse when we see one, even if we pretend to accept it and say "oh yes, i totally get it. that makes complete sense why that nearly finished blanket has been sitting in the corner for five years, gathering dust", all the while knowing it's malarky.

but i am choosing to let go of that and push through whatever it is and complete things.

and i finished that cowl. so there.

my next project in line for finishing is a set of woodland sprites that's been sitting around for a couple of years. embarrassing, but true. i started them two years ago for the school's silent auction and never completed them and they sat in a bag for two years.

well, i am happy to say that they are nearly done. this year's auction is march 10th and i have only to complete their little woodland hats and finish their faces and they will be off to the auction. bliss. band blowing horns. gold stars pasted all over my forehead. big gooey smile on my face.

February 05, 2012

i think i just needed to step into my life a bit. really be present for my family and their needs without a screen in front of my face.

my children had been making comments. screen comments that involved me + that screen. the one i don't allow them to use very often. waldorf family that we are and all.

and they were right. i was planted in front of that screen fairly often.

i was loving the computer and it's endless possibilities a bit too much, perhaps. and then suddenly, my brain just needed a large break.

breaks are good.

i couldn't remember why i started blogging. i forgot. i wondered if it had any meaning. and so i paused with the blog writing and started scribbling on paper instead and i haven't stopped doing that. that's become a must for me. scribbling. on paper. downloading the things in my head that need to be scribbled and looked at by me only, so i could see what it is that my heart is really searching for and who i really am, what questions i have + what answers.

it's nice to check in.

i write in inexpensive spiral bound notebooks, so i don't get too precious about it, and i circle the things that seem to repeat themselves or that jump out at me for whatever reason, and i fold down the pages with the quotes i've copied that i love.

and i shred the rest.

i actually love that part. shredding those old thoughts and things of the past. letting go.

+ i love collecting the quotes that really resonate with me and making plans to embroider them on the latest thing i'm embroidering. i pencil them down on fabric. i hunt down just the right font, lover of font that i am, and trace it onto the fabric, hoping to duplicate it at least somewhat with thread.

but now i know exactly why i started blogging again. and i'll tell you.

it was that section in tif fussel's book that i got recently, that i love, where she talks about her own blogging experience and how it changed her perspective about daily life and helped her to see it in a different light + i thought oh my goodness yes. that's it. that's exactly it. that is what blogging does for me too. and photographing things. it changes my perspective about things. it helps me capture and remember + be present for moments in my life in a different way. it helps me see my life differently.

different meaning good.

for example, i am not an early riser sort of person. i do not have that gene. i just don't. i accept that about myself. some people i know can go out drinking until the wee hours of the night and they will still get up at five all bright and sun shiney, and clear their inbox and have breakfast made and clean the kitchen before the kids even get up.

that's just not who i am and i embrace that wholeheartedly and commend them on being the advanced human that they are who can do such impossible things.

i have never gotten over the fact that when i had children i had to shift my schedule to adjust to the hours they like to rise (and they are early risers) and as they've grown older to the hours they need to get to school or to that rehearsal or field trip or lesson on time, fed, lunches made, all that. all early.

i am cranky in the morning. i would never last long working on a farm or in a bakery, much as i find the idea romantic.

cranky.

partly because i would love to just sleep in until 7:30 and not 6 and also, probably because i love that quiet time at night so much, that time when the kids are asleep and the chores are either done or can be ignored and the phone stops ringing and i can just listen to the stillness and be creative and write or knit or spin yarn or paint or whatever without anyone interrupting me. i love that. i love it so much that i often get to bed far later than i should considering i have to get up at the crack of dawn to launch into the usual routine. and then i don't get enough sleep. and etc...

now when my daughter and her beautiful sun-shiney friend come giggling into my room with cokatiels on their head at the crack of dawn after a very late night watching the mahler symphony, what do i do? do i scold them and pull the covers over my head, hoping to disappear back into that dream i was having, getting all ticked off that i can't??

why no!

amazingly, i feel a sudden, rare, impossible surge of adrenaline, RACE for my iphone and launch out of bed saying, "wait right there!" and "just a little to the left!" and start snapping away and instagramming and i suddenly i am filled with bliss. bliss. at not quite 7 in the morning. after going to bed after midnight! me. the cranky one. and i am ready to make those girls anything their hungry hearts desire. i am offering pancake-making and scrambled eggs and smiling as they bounce out of the room, chirping cockatiels in tow.

and then i look back at that photo later, several times, in fact, and i glow, thinking of that lovely, beautiful morning moment that i captured and appreciated and was truly present for. and i am happy. truly happy. whereas prior to blogging (which inspired + then drove me with some sort of incessant longing to the random capturing of daily life), i would have looked at that whole thing in a much more grumpy light. just the whole being woken up early after a late night thing. i would have completely missed the sweet giggly girls and the birds on both their heads and just all of the goodness of it.

crazy, right?

but i didn't miss it.

and i'm so glad i didn't miss it. i am so, so glad.

thank you tif + dottie angel, for pointing that out about blogging in your lovely book. because i had completely forgot. and now i remember. and i am very happy to be back.

January 29, 2012

it is a new year. it is well into the new year. it is the end of january.

i never made any resolutions, not really. usually, i do. i make a list. i plot. and i definitely have things i plan to do like finish projects and really spend time doing the things i love to do, but for me, mostly, from here on out it is a path of developing awareness and presence appreciating the moments in life that are so worth appreciating. all of them. fleeting, though they are. i plan to really look at them and be there in them from here on out. you hear that, moments? i am here.

i have discovered things about myself. strange things. different things, like, i absolutely love letters and fonts. i mean, i knew that, but i didn't really know that.

i know that now.

i think secretly in another lifetime i was a typographer. i'm not kidding. i own more than one book about calligraphy and i plot out tattoos that i plan to get based on the latest fonts i fall in love with. and words i fall in love with too. i buy books about bubble writing and about graffiti lettering and about all kinds of other types of lettering. i collect letterpress letters and have them piled in bowls and on shelves spelling out various things. i noticed all this the other day.

did anyone else notice this?

i think what really made me aware of it, to be honest, i mean really aware that my heart actually throbs and gets excited about font, of all things, was reading about type camp in uppercase magazine. type camp! there's a whole layout in that magazine about the many fabulous retreats that exist, that we should be aware of, such as squam, which i've been to and is for-sure life-changing, and the makerie + the teahouse and ace camp, ace camp! which i fantasize about.

but type camp.

now why in the world would i get all sing-songy about that? i have no idea. and to be honest, i don't know that i'd really want to go - i might just want to sit on my computer and spend way too much time scouting out typography blogs and cursing the prices of the many drool-worthy fonts that are out there, waiting to be used and wondering what i can do with those fonts if i ever get my hands on them.

or maybe i will go after all. to type camp. hmmm.

but anyway, secretly, in another life, a typographer. i'm certain. i'm positive. isn't that a fun thing to discover at almost 40?

in other news griffin and i abandoned all plans of cooking with absolutely no qualms whatsoever and walked to sweet rose for an ice cream sundae dinner. it was just us, after all, and we needed a walk. and we needed an ice cream, too.

October 13, 2011

i have signed up for a painting class. it's good because it forces me to paint for three hours a week and that's something i haven't done in a long time and something i've been kind of wanting to do for a long time and it forces me to take time for myself and i'm just wondering where it will take me.

i'm exploring. i'm an explorer.

it's not quite the same community i fell in love with at squam. it's not really a long enough time to paint, three hours. i think i need a day. but it's something.